Scozzafava is a Conservative Republican (in New York)

A special election to replace Representative John McHugh (R) is being held in the conservative 23rd District located in northern New York State. State Assemblywoman Deirdre (Dede) Scozzafava is the Republican candidate, attorney Bill Owens is the Democratic candidate, and there’s a prominent Conservative party candidate in Douglas Hoffman (minor parties are much more important in New York than other states for a variety of reasons).

Scozzafava has been assailed from the right for being far too liberal. For example, the libertarian Wall Street Journal this morning wrote of her that:

Democrats want to portray this race as a familiar moderate-conservative GOP split, but the real issue is why Ms. Scozzafava is a Republican at all. She has voted for so many tax increases that the Democrat is attacking her as a tax raiser. She supported the Obama stimulus, and she favors “card check” to make union organizing easier, or at least she did until a recent flip-flop.She has run more than once on the line of the Working Families Party, which is aligned with Acorn. Her voting record in Albany puts her to the left of nearly half of the Democrats in the assembly. She also favors gay marriage, which is to the left of Mr. Obama.

In spite of its having gone for Obama in 2008, the district’s history suggests that it is basically conservative; Ms. Scozzafava is basically not. Boy, is she not: Not only pro-choice and in favor of homosexual marriage — common if distasteful concessions to the secular liberals’ agenda — she also supports some of the most odious items on the Left’s wish-list, including the “card check” initiative that would put a big cudgel in the hands of Big Labor while effectively disenfranchising millions of American workers who may not desire to become Teamsters, SEIU members, or similar. She signed the Americans for Tax Reform pledge to oppose tax hikes but immediately declared that she was not bound by having done so. It is no surprise that she is supported by the public-employees unions, ACORN — and Daily Kos founder Markos Moulitsas Zúñiga. (Really.)

It was a fairly typical evening–until the speech ended and someone with Scozzafava’s campaign called the police. On me.

Despite the laundry list of liberal issue positions held by Scozzafava, my research with Princeton’s Nolan McCarty on ideology in American state legislatures shows that the Assemblywoman is actually a conservative Republican. Wait for it. Wait for it… In New York.

Her ideological “common space” score is 0.02. These scores, similar but far superior to interest group ratings, put state legislators around the country on the same scale with each other, as well as with members of Congress. Liberals have lower scores; conservatives higher ones.

The most liberal legislator in New York state from that served anytime between 1996-2003 is Democratic Assemblyman Daniel O’Donnell of Manhattan (Rosie O’Donnell’s brother), with a score of -2.9. One of the most conservative is Republican Robert DiCarlo of Staten Island, with a score of 1.64. DiCarlo was a titled a “maverick” Republican (!) for his conservative views on issues such as abortion by the New York Times.

Scozzafava’s score puts her in the 58th percentile of her party, which makes her slightly more conservative than the average Republican legislator in Albany, so she’s a conservative in her party. For example, she’s more conservative than James Tedisco, who lost a special election to succeed Kirsten Gillenbrand in the 20th District (score: -.22 and in the most liberal fifth of the party). In the legislature as a whole, she’s in the 83rd percentile, which makes her a conservative in Albany in general. Compare her, say, to Republican Thomas Morahan of the 38th Senate District (Rockland County, just across the border from the New Jersey town where I went to high school). He scores a very liberal -0.54, or in the most liberal 2% of his party. No wonder that his party affiliations include the Working Families Party, which is closely associated with organized labor (and ACORN). So she’s no Morahan.

But, of course, she’s a New York Republican and conservative. And if you thought that Republican equals conservative, and Democratic equals liberal, you’d be pretty far off when looking at America’s 50 state legislatures. New York’s Republicans (along with Massachusetts’, Connecticut’s, Hawaii’s, and New Jersey’s) are the most liberal in the country, so much so that Democrats in Alabama, Arkansas, Idaho, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, North Dakota, Oklahoma, and South Carolina are all more conservative on average.

Here’s a picture of where New York rates ideologically relative to the other states and Congress over the past decade. The grey lines represent, for comparison, the ideology of Congressional Democrats and Republicans in approximately the same time period.

The New York legislature is one thing, and Congress is quite another. If Scozzafava were to win the election, she’d be replacing Representative John McHugh. He scores at 0.4, which is pretty liberal for a Republican (hence his nomination by President Obama), but far more conservative than Scozzafava.

American political parties are wild, diverse beasts, and New York is a perfect example of that. Which makes doing research in this area lots of fun.

Update: It’s quite heartening that this post has made its rounds in the blogosphere. But, a note of caution. The data that lie behind this post and form the basis for the chart are preliminary and subject to change as we update our work.

That chart would be much more readable if it were ordered by size of the smallest separation between members of the opposite state parties or by size of the separation between average party members. Ordering by the score of the average Democrat and ordering by the score of the average republican would also be graphically demonstrative of something interesting, as would ordering by spread of the distributions, total population, population density, etc. Plotting average scores of each party versus demographic factors on another plot would similarly be revealing. It just looks like a data mishmash right now with republicans getting vaguely more liberal.

Hey, all this Conservative “3rd Party mania,” because of Scazzofava has certainly managed one thing: It now justifies our Libertarian calls for the occasional Conservative endorsement of Libertarian Party candidates in such special circumstances.

Post-Scazzofava Conservatives will no longer be able to say with a straight face to Libertarians, “3rd party efforts are for Losers.”

Thank you Conservatives! We Libertarians have been aiming for this for years.

Piddlesworth — the plot is actually ordered by the average ideology of the state legislature, from most conservative at the top to the most liberal at the bottom, but I suppose it’s not that obvious here. Nebraska is excluded because it doesn’t have official parties in the unicameral legislature. Thanks for the suggestions, though, I’m still working on the project!

Jonathan — at the end of the post, I compare Scozzafava to Representative McHugh, who’s leaving the seat, and she’s considerably more liberal than he is. As for different issues — well, these ideal point estimates of ideology reduce different dimensions of ideology to very few; in this case, one.

An interesting line of thinking, but the proper context is *upstate* politics/voting patterns, not New York State. Downstate is dark blue, while upstate (depending on where you draw the line) is either 50/50 or very very light blue. Upstate Republicans are almost never liberal, and upstate Democrats are more likely to be moderate. Scozzafava would make sense as a Republican running in Long Island or Westchester, but not in the Adirondacks.

The problem with your ideological “common space” score is that it looks at the year 1996-2003. (In fact the Senator you mention as the most conservative Robert DiCarlo hasn’t been in office since he lost re-election in 1996!)

A lot has changed since the years you look at.

Her years in Albany has moved Ms. Scozzafava to the left. In 2003 she got a 46 rating from the Conservative Party of NY (meaning she voted against them 54% of the time). By 2008 her Conservative Party rating was down to 15%. That 15% score is by the way is the same score they gave Rosie O’Donnell’s brother Daniel O’Donnell in 2008.

For further comparison sake Assemblyman Tedisco got a 55% score, Sen Morahan who you called the most Liberal Republican got a 50% (although in fairness he is a Senator not an Assemblyman and not voting on the same bills as Ass. Scozzafava).

Why the drop? Why the move to the left? Well since 2003 Ms. Scozzafava has been willing to get into bed with organized labor and the Working Families Party. They endorsed her in 2004 and 2008. So stricky looking at her record from 6 years ago and saying she was a conservative is really not fair.

You need to look at where she is now and what she has voted for lately. She has voted for raising taxes, supported the stimulus bill, supports pro-card check and hasn’t said a word about foreign policy (her web site doesn’t even have a foreign policy section so we have no idea how she feels about Iraq, Afghanistan or the War on Terror).

[…] spilled in claiming the GOP candidate Dede Scozzafava is a liberal is sheep’s clothing. This blog post shows that, indeed, Scozzafava is a conservative, in her context of the state of New …: Her ideological “common space” score is 0.02. These scores, similar but far superior […]

Izengabe — I wouldn’t put too much stock in interest group ratings. They’ve got really well known problems that I explore in my latest paper draft.

But still, it’s quite possible things have changed since 2003. Nearly all the time, politicians remain consistent in terms of issue positions, but some do change (party switchers especially — but getting crosslisted with a new party like the WFP might be similar). Luckily, we’re getting new data on New York state through 2008 shortly, which I’ll use to update this post.

Hey, just followed this from FiveThirtyEight. And…holy cow, I think I might have some new reading material for quite a while.

With regards to the Wall Street Journal and NRO – I don’t think they quite grasp the entire “Northeastern Republican” thing. Which is why they’re a rare breed and a lot on the right seem all too willing to run Olympia Snowe out of Congress. (Conversely, a lot on the left would be all too happy to see Max Baucus, Ben Nelson, and other Blue Dogs gone, but I have a feeling that progressives like me are not driving the Democratic bus quite as much as the people behind WSJ’s editorial section and National Review are the Republican one.)

From what I gather, Scozzafava is essentially a centrist nationally, and liberal in many parts of the country, but political ties do drift over time. Look at Gillibrand – Blue Dog in NY-20, and I believe a good Democratic footsoldier in the Senate. When she was promoted, she did move significantly left, it seemed.

Ditto for Specter in PA – he became a fairly reliable D vote when he switched parties, more reliable a Democrat than he was a Republican, if I recall.

I anticipate that the hemming and hawing over her ideology is moot – she’ll probably drift to the right if she gets to Washington. But I’m just armchair quarterbacking.

I look forward to the public paper. I think this is a very interesting avenue of research for political science that could be useful in other areas. For instance, having a better idea of the ideology of a member of the state legislature could help those interested in the impact of whip operations in Congress.

I think the article misses the real controversy regarding the 23rd District. However, the graph is interesting and informative.

The secondary issue is that we have a solidly GOP district that was represented by a reasonably conservative Republican for many years. The former representative won his most recent elections by a 2 to 1 margin. Yet, EVEN HERE, the GOP leadership is terrified to nominate a candidate who would be considered solidly conservative by most of the country’s standards. They insist that Hoffman can’t win. This is what riles the GOP rank-and-file.

The broader issue, however, is that the GOP leadership is interfering in the primary elections. The RNC, NRCC and the NRCC, to name a few, should NOT be endorsing, promoting or other suppporting one candidate over another in a Primary election. Let the rank and file decide who they want as their nominee without interference from the leadership.

As for the “Northeast Republican” thing, I think that even the most conservative members of the party understand that you can’t run the same kind of candidate in NY that you can in Texas. What we’d like to see from the national GOP is a set of core principals that our candidates will abide by. Things like promoting limited government, less regulation, less spending and lower taxes. Maybe a social conservative couldn’t win in many northeast states, but a libertarian or libertarian-conservative might. We’re sick of watching candidates make completely unnecessary compromises just curry favor with the media or because they’re afraid to take a stand on an issue. We can adapt to the local political climate without sacrificing the principals held by most rank-and-file Republicans.

What you miss is her falling out with the Conservative Party of NY in 2004 and lining up behind the Working Family’s agenda. The Conservative Party cross endorsed her every year until 2004. She didn’t get their endorsement in 2004, 2006 or 2008. That is because she move left and voted with and aliegned herself with the ACORN friendly Working Families Party.

Chris and Izengabe — what’s remarkable is how stable ideology is. Politician’s views do shift over their careers, but the best evidence we have is that this is by far the exception and not the rule.

Kaitlin — I’ll be in touch!

Ellis — parties interfere in primary elections all the time! But in this case, I think the special election nature means that parties nominate candidates directly. In this case, Scozzafava is a good representative of elected Albany Republicans. However, she may in fact be to the left of unelected Republican officials, or the population in the district, as you suggest.

Izengabe — interesting about developments from 2004. I’ll shortly be getting data on NY through 2008, so we’ll see if there was a marked change around 2004 that I might be missing. But what caused the falling out? Why the change?

[…] concentrated effort to purge those northeastern moderate Republicans from the party completely. According to this, Dede Scozzafava is more conservative than Jim Tedisco, whom conservatives supported strongly in […]

[…] regions of the country), but she's far from liberal. For those interested in the numbers: https://bshor.wordpress.com/2009/10/2…n-in-new-york/ __________________ "Freedom to learn is the first necessity of guaranteeing that man himself […]

It would also be inteesting to see a poll comparison with the voters by party in each of those states. Being in a northern suburb of New York, my anecdotal observation is that the typical Republican and even more likley the primary voter is much more conservative than the leadership of the party on most issues (but with enough diversity on social issues that I would have trouble making the call). Real results on the same scale as your charts could be quite revealing. Good work!

[…] Rich, And Scozzafava is a mainstream conservative by New York standards; one statistical measure found her voting record slightly to the right of her fellow Republicans in the Assembly. But she has occasionally strayed […]

[…] views. Her record is a matter of public record. It is discussed at some length here. Scozzafava is a Conservative Republican (in New York) She obviously didn't satisfy the more far right local conservatives who supported Hoffman and in […]

[…] points out in his analysis, Brown is conservative — for Massachusetts. Just as Dede Scozzafava was considered to the right of most New York Republican legislators even though the perception of her outside of […]